Experimenting with the 'Stories Task'

I have decided to experiment with photoshop to manipulate these images...




I based these photos on John Goto's 'New World Circus' (which is still in progress), where he got a collection of people together and made them reenact the facial expressions from the Vietnam War. He later contrasted this by making them copy George Bush's expressions. (political)

Fashion Photography

Sport Photography

On the Monday of half term I made my way down to St.Peter's Iford site to photograph the 'Ahead of the Game' programme, this is a sample of the pictures I took...

Baby in a Jar Contest...

During Cornwall we were set the task of capturing the best photo of a baby in a jar, and as you can tell we got up to some strange things...


But here are my favourite three...
3.

2.

1. I just feel this is the most gruesome of all...

Cornwall...

Social Documentary (5 Pics) The Cornish Environment (5 Pictures) and Elements of Cornwall (again 5 pictures) However, I've chosen to display my findings a little differently...

Social Documentary:




Pictures of 3:
The Elements of Eden...


The aim in Cornwall was to capture pictures which complemented the project titles,

Symmetry...




Pictures Of Two, Playing with colour...


Textures which resemble the sea...


The views...

Well I've gone over 15...but there's so many links between the pictures I took it's a shame to just choose 15 (more links and photographer comparisons in cornwall sketchbook) However, on the trip I've got a lot more confident with using my camera in pubic spaces and approaching people I've never met before.

Timeline... Better Late Then Never

Here is my finished photography timeline, and it's the first time I've used photoshop. But I tried to show the transaction of old to new in my time line by having everything on the left hand side slowly turning blue and into colour. (Which can be seen on the right hand side of the timeline.) My original idea for the timeline was that it was going to be animated, however, I believed this exercise was a great introduction to photoshop. I also experimented with the fill and how opaque images on the page were, for example the post-it notes were given shadows to make them stand out more and were filled more than other images on the page so the viewer would be draw to them more, without them competing with other images for the viewers attention.

The Street Task...3 Portraits

I decided to take the pictures of people in my road in the style of Shizuka Yokomizo. Yokomizo sent her subjects letters asking if they wanted to take part in her experiment. She would allocate them a time of which to stand by their window and open the curtains or blinds, if they did not want to participate in the project, they would keep the blinds shut, or not turn up. I have done this but in my road, firstly I told my sister to pull back the blinds at 8pm as she did I took a picture:

My sister, Harriet and her boyfriend, Jamie

However, in the day the reflection of the sun bounces off the window spoiling the picture, at night the flash is shown in the picture, and with out the flash the shutter speed is slower (due to the absence of light)and as I am absent of a tripod the images normally end up blured, however, after a couple of shots I ended up with this photo...


After taking these pictures I arranged to see my neighbour down the road, who bought along his son (who I hadn't met before) and these are the pictures I took...



Obviously the main difference between Yokomizo's work and this picture is I was the one inside taking a picture of the boy who was outside, this was mainly due to the reflection that was bouncing back in the picture when we were reversed. In these two pictures I turned off the flash so that the light wasn't flashed back in the picture, ruining the image.

The Street Task...3 images of my street

Here I have taken pictures of my street...

This first image is focused on a post box


The second is of a sign, I found this image visually pleasing, as if the yellow stood out on a clear blue background....


The final image is at night, and I slowed the shutter speed right down to 4" F5.3 when I saw a passing car...

The Street Task...3 images of 'Something and Nothing'

Here is the first 1/3 of the Street Project, Here are 3 images of 'something and nothing.' I have linked these three images together because they are all discarded items I found in my street, I also re-coloured them in black and white so that it would give the effect that they are alone and no one wants them any more.



A lost toy on a wall



A leaf suspended in mid air
(I zoomed in on this so the background was out of focus, making the image sharper)



An empty packet of cigarets dropped onto the side of the road

However, the task was to find three images which I did, and as I was walking back home I stumbled across a man on his own sitting on a tree, reading a book, by the side of the road, and as soon as I saw him I related him to those disregarded objects by the side of the road. (I did try and play with the shutter speed as I wanted him to be in focus and the cars going past to be a blur, however, everything ended up being under exposed, the picture would turn out white.)

The Second Task...

I began to put to together ideas in my sketch-book on how I could creatively display visually pleasing portraits of my family, I started thinking about taking pictures of them from different angles, however, my family at home are quite camera shy (including myself) so I decided to retake pictures that had already been taken, however, I wanted to capture their personality in each photo. So I found objects that define and/or places that define them . However, I will put the objects/place slightly out of focus so the viewer's eyes are drawn towards the original picture I am retaking...



I also decided to put each photo in black and white to make them seem authentic as the pictures featured in them are old photos.



**In response to the comment**
I decided to retake 2 of the 3 pictures I originally took for this task. I changed the background of the picture so that the two objects are a lot sharper and stand out, which was hard to do in the previous picture as they were lost in the eternal pattern of the last photo, stopping that endless feel. I also zoomed in on the picture more so that the background was more out of focus, meaning the glasses weren't competing for the views attention. Also to improve the lighting a found a deck light and positioned it over the items. (Please note that the image of me, looking at the left side of it, the rim of the glasses have appeared white, making the retaken photos of myself look like am I out of focus. However, I am in focus its just the quality of the old photo.)



Here is a picture of my mother about 18 or 16 years ago (I'm guessing the baby is either myself or Harriet, my sister) and she spends most of her time in the kitchen cooking and she's a caring person and I feel this captures her personality quite well.



Finally this is a picture of my sister and her boyfriend from about 2/3 years ago and with the bear in the background it captures their relationship nicely (however, I feel if I were to modify the image I'd put the photograph of them, more in-focus than the bear)



This new image has been taken with a lamp positioned over it to give it a more even lighting, I also zoomed in more on the photo so that the bear was out of focus drawing the views eyes to the photo before the bear.

First Post...

Just a post to see if the blog is working and also I have my two pictures for the homework...



This first one is a group of me and my friends on the beach in Kenya (taken this summer) and we're walking in a line into the distance...



This was later taken by myself when we were on safari and I feel the two pictures have a connection because they're both people/animals in a line on a journey into the distance, which in a way shows how animals and humans are somewhat similar, yet I may be looking into the pictures too deeply at this point...

Cheers

Jack